


Whether Heaven Has Doomed

by AAG1D



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Season Four Aftermath, Sherlolly if you squint, can be read platonically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 06:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17055191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AAG1D/pseuds/AAG1D
Summary: Molly Hooper had always predicted that Sherlock Holmes would one day fall.  She had just never imagined that he would fall three times, or that she would be privy to each and every one of them.Cross-posted on ffnet.I own nothing.





	Whether Heaven Has Doomed

A/N:  So my adventure in slowly cross-posting my stuff from fanfiction.net is taking longer than I expected, surprise surprise.  While I moan over the monster that is Instrument of Darkness, here's my first ever Sherlock one-shot to keep you entertained.  It's based off of a real event that happened in my second-year Uni English class, when my exhausted eyes saw the 'sh' and the 'ock' in shock, and automatically read the line as Sherlock.  Thus birthing this fic, lol.

There are errors.  For that I am sorry.

Hope you enjoy it anyways!

-AAG1D

///

_Or Whether Heaven Has Doomed That Shock Must Fall_

_-Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”_

///

Molly Hooper had always predicted that one day the great and mighty Sherlock Holmes would spectacularly fall.

Of course at the time that she had made such a prediction, it was more of an accident than a prophecy, and in general more of a hope that the class A prat in her first-year English class – who unfortunately also happened to be the closest thing Molly really had to a ‘friend’ (though heaven forbid him ever hear her call him that) – would merely trip over his ridiculously expensive Italian leather shoes that she hated so much.

(Not that that would actually ever happen, as he was Sherlock Holmes, the man who ate dictionaries for breakfast and spewed out ridiculously posh insults as pleasantries, while at the same time having an air of grace and elegance topping off his over-all demeanor of full-time git, one of which Molly was forever jealous.)

She had heard about Sherlock Holmes long before she had ever met him, as he tended to have quite the infamous reputation around campus.  His name was whispered by the first-years, and cursed by any who had the unfortunate luck of meeting him in person.  The general consensus, however, was that he apparently was some kind of mind-reading genius who was generally given the label of _weird._

Molly simply ignored the opinions of others on the matter, and decided she would save her judgement until she actually met the man herself, _if_ she ever met him in the first place.  And of course, the moment after which she came to such a thought, the universe decided that Molly’s life didn’t have enough drama as it was, and promptly sought to change that.

Which was how Molly Hooper found herself sitting next to Sherlock Holmes in a first-year English class.

She quickly learned that _genius_ did not cover the sheer amount of knowledge stored in that vast brain of his, and that _mind reading_ really wasn’t all that far off the dot where he was concerned.  She couldn’t exactly condemn him to the title of weird though, despite his macabre interests and experiments.  Pathology was her field of study after all, and she’d have been lying had she said that she hadn’t found his experiment on decaying flesh absolutely fascinating.

Of course, he initially considered her nothing more than a dullard who seemed to exist for the sole purpose of forcing him to endure the mundane curse of general idiocy – his words, not hers.

The twat.

It wasn’t until she was able to shed some light on the biological standpoint of one of his less savory experiments, that he deemed her worthy enough to no longer be completely ignored, and occasionally snarled at.  Instead he took it as an opportunity to guarantee a seat beside someone of barely higher intelligence than the rest of the imbecilic cretins he was forced to endure a class with, and he also took it as an open invitation to insist on her help whenever it deigned his fancy, while simultaneously giving him the right to apparently openly deduce her, wrapping the whole thing up in a nicely packaged insult to top it off.

In other words, she was the closest thing he had to an acquaintance, and he was the closest thing that she had to a friend (mostly because she had a sliver of intelligence, and he was one of the few people who didn’t balk when she talked about extracting fluid from intestines).

As the school year progressed, she found herself more and more in the company of Sherlock Holmes, if only because he found her chosen career fascinating, and viewed it as an opportunity to try and steal bits for his own experiments.  She honestly didn’t mind – as harsh as his words could be, he was no longer intentionally mean to her, and instead directed his insults to those of lesser intelligence than she. 

He was a third-year Chemistry major with a penchant for getting in trouble, and she was a first-year biology major, with a hope for doctoring the dead.  They were weird together, and it worked.

Which brought her back to the matter at hand – their critical reading assignment of _The Rape of the Lock._

She couldn’t help letting out an unlady-like groan.

Sherlock simultaneously sighed and rolled his eyes in response, as his hand furiously wrote down… something. 

“While I detest stating the obvious, that’s your third groan over the course of the last forty-seven seconds, and I feel the need to remind you that making noises is not aiding us in any shape or form in our goal of finishing this assignment,” He finished monotonously, eyes now scanning across whatever he had just written in his dog-eared notebook. 

Molly just groaned again.  “It is helping.  I’m decompressing all this useless junk from my mind.  And for the record, you _love_ stating the obvious.”

The smallest quirk of his lip.  “Perhaps I do,” He conceded, quirking a brow.  “And while I agree that this is nothing more than ‘useless junk,’ it still needs to be done if we want any hope of graduating from this abomination of a University.  And groaning does _not_ help.  Read the next passage.”

Scowling to herself – one of these days she was going to just ignore the demands of the gitwad just to see his knickers get in a twist – she picked up her book, eyes skimming to where they had left off. 

“ _…Or whether heaven has doomed that Sherlock must fall –_ wait, I mean _shock! That_ shock _must fall_ ,” Molly chuckled slightly.  “Though I would certainly pay to see you fall as well.  It might actually knock your ego down a few pegs back into our atmosphere.”

Sherlock gave her an unamused look, but she quickly started reading again before a fresh torrent of insults to her intelligence could tumble from his lips.

Later, she mused that Sherlock probably would fall eventually, if the laws of gravity and nature trapped him in a perfect moment.  She tucked the knowledge away, snickering over it once and a while as the years past, and their friendship steadily grew.  And she vowed to herself that if the pompous prick ever did spectacularly fall, she would be first in line to see it and tell him _I told you so._

She just never had predicted that he would fall three times.

Or that she would be privy to each and every one.

///

The first time he fell, it was quite literal, and quite physical, and overall not near as funny as she had once thought it would be.  If anything, it was terrifying – there were so many _what ifs,_ and unknowns.  And what made everything worse were the circumstances surrounding it all.

Because Sherlock Holmes was not a fake genius.  She had had to put up with the colossal git since her first year of Uni, and since then somehow managed to maintain a friendship with him all throughout undergrad and medical school, adventure and mishap, and the dark days of his drug addiction.  Up until John Watson entered his life, she would’ve said that her and Greg were his two closest friends, and there was no way, _no way,_ that she was going to let someone like Jim Moriarty slander the brilliant man she had grown to love.

Unfortunately, Moriarty tended to be smarter than most people, resulting in extreme measures being needed. 

Such as Sherlock falling off a roof.

Hours after the whole debacle – as she’s fighting the guilt that threatens to consume her from spending the afternoon lying to John and Greg and Mrs. Hudson, telling them that she finished the autopsy and that he was gone, despite the fact that he was actually quite comfortable in her flat – she chuckles morbidly to herself.

Sherlock looks up for the first time in hours from her couch, his brow crinkled in confusion.  She shakes her head in answer to his silent question.

“It’s just,” she takes a deep breath to both calm her nerves and stop her giggles, “ _Heaven has doomed that Sherlock must fall._ Our first-year English class.  You probably deleted it, but when we were reading _The Rape of the Lock_ I–”

“-Misread the line replacing the word ‘shock’ with my name.  Yes, I remember,” He admits quietly, returning to his previous position.  “Though I suppose today’s events were a little more literal than what you had had in mind.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Molly agrees quietly, humor gone.  “It’s not nearly as funny as I’d thought it’d be either.”

Sherlock snorts in agreement.

Unfortunately for the both of them, his next fall isn’t funny either.

///

Her hand aches from when she slapped him, but it’s nothing compared to the rolling anger barely contained within her tiny body.  He’s made her angry before – wrecked assignments, stolen body parts, thoughtless words – but never has she been so absolutely furious.  He had promised her, all those years ago when she had picked his limp form off of his bathroom floor for the last time.  _Promised her._ And here he was having thrown that promise out with yesterday’s trash, all for the sake of a case.

Forget furious.  She’s _livid._

Being friends with Sherlock Holmes, Molly had learned quite quickly to never take anything he said to heart.  He was rude and manipulative and generally nothing more than an overgrown man-child. 

But he always kept his promises.

Or at least, he did.

Up until that day Molly had only ever weaseled two promises out of the twat.  The second was made the day after his fall from St. Barts, as he was leaving in the dead of night, slipping from her room silently enough to put Toby to shame, but not before promising that he would be back.  That he would always come back.

And come back he did.

The first promise evidently did not mean as much to him as she thought it did.

The first promise was made after a month of silence on her end.  She had cut herself off from him and their years of friendship in the desperate attempt of protecting herself.  She cared too much for him, and as his drug habit grew constantly worse, so did her pain and fear.  Each time he pushed himself farther than was safe, and each time she wondered if it would be his last.

Until of course, the time that nearly was his last.

She had been stopping by his flat to drop off a book that she had just finished reading for one of her medical courses since she had thought he might enjoy it.  He had given her a key years ago, after she had insisted on having one made since he could so easily access her flat by picking the locks anyways, and thus she argued that she should have easy access to his flat as well.  She hadn’t seen him in a couple of days – she could always tell when seven percent didn’t seem like enough, and she would do her best to avoid him during those times, knowing that he wasn’t aware of his actions, and when he was high his actions always, _always,_ aimed for the kill.  Instead she opted for laying low for a week or so, or at least until Greg texted her to inform her when Sherlock was momentarily ‘clean’ again for a case.

This time, she was hoping her book could give him some much needed brain stimulation to drag him out of his drug-induced funk.

In the end she would never find out, as instead of finding an acerbic tongued junkie wrecking havoc to his dingy flat, she instead found something that made her heart freeze in her chest and her breath catch in her throat.

Most of it was a blur.  Medical knowledge bounced in her brain aimlessly, telling her the signs of an overdose, and yet failing to compute them.  At some point she must have called 999, because one moment she was shaking him, cradling his head, begging him to wake up, and the next there were paramedics, a hospital, a worried Greg, and a stone-faced Mycroft.  After an unknown amount of time passed, a nurse finally came and informed the three that Sherlock would be fine.

But it was too late for Molly Hooper, because that day she had realized something horrible.

She loved Sherlock Holmes, and she could not live with herself if she watched him destroy his life for a moment more.  Yes, she wanted to be a Doctor for the dead, but that also meant that she never, _ever_ wanted to be a Doctor for Sherlock Holmes.

And so she had stood up, and left the hospital, determined not to turn back.

Sherlock knew immediately what was going on several weeks later when he was up and about again, and had been studiously ignored by the one person he had once been so certain would never ignore him.  It wasn’t until a month passed of the silent treatment, that he realized it would have to be the drugs or Molly Hooper.

He cleaned up his act within the week, even trading in cigarettes for nicotine patches.  And he promised her that he would never touch the ghastly stuff again.  For years he kept his promise.  He moved out of his dank rooms at Montague street, and found John who was without a doubt the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him.  He was good.  He was _clean._

Until today, apparently.

It was a fall in every sense of the word.  A fall from his years of hard-work, a fall from grace, a fall from her _trust._

And the inconsiderate prat knew it.

“Molly,” His baritone is uncharacteristically unsure, as he knocks again on her flat door.  “I know you’re in there.”

She refrains from childishly releasing a string of expletives directed at the Detective, and merely stirs the lemon into her tea more vigorously.  “Go away Sherlock.  Why don’t you go bother John?”

A moment of silence.  “John is still stewing over the fact that Mary is an ex-assassin who shot me.”  Ah, of course.  Seems everyone in her life is a trust-breaking psychopath.  Except for Tom of course.  He was as boring as they came.  And she still managed to lose him along the way.

“Please Molly,” Sherlock’s plea breaks her train of thought.  “At least let me explain.”

_That did it._

“Explain?!” Molly finally lets out the anger that had been stewing over the course of the last few weeks, as she all but rips her door off its hinges, her tea slopping over the edges of her mug.  She’s met by Sherlock’s wide eyes as she snarls at him in a way she has never dared to before.  “What is there to explain?  It’s fairly simple from where I see it.  You broke a promise and shot up again, like a true addict.”

He flinches hard at her last sentence.  Good.  About time he feels something along the lines of remorse for what he did.

“I had to.  It was to protect Mycroft.”

“Mycroft,” Molly snorts in disbelief.  “I find that hard to believe.”

“I know,” Sherlock placates, “But it’s true.  I can’t tell you why for safety precautions, but I’m not lying to you, Molly Hooper.  I know I broke my promise, and that it will take a long time for you to even remotely want to be in my presence again, but you have to know, I _never_ wanted to hurt you.  And I never meant to fall off the wagon to that extent, and I’m sorry.”

For a good minute he stands on her stoop, looking for all the world like a puppy who’s regretful for a wrong.  And slowly as the seconds ticked by, her anger drains and is instead replaced with her usual disappointment.

“Okay,” She finally states.  “I’m still upset that you did this, but if you say it was for Mycroft, I’ll believe you.  Just promise me one thing Sherlock – don’t do this again.”

Sherlock immediately perks up.  But he hesitates at her final request.  She watches his mouth close, as he contemplates what she asked, before looking at her directly.

“I can’t promise that.”

Immediately Molly deflates.  “Then I guess this is goodbye-”

“-Wait,” Sherlock bodily blocks her from shutting the door, desperation straining his voice.  “I can’t promise you because I don’t want to risk disappointing you again.  But I promise you I will try, Molly.  I’ll _try._ Because I can’t lose you too, Molly. I won’t.”

For several seconds, the Pathologist and the Consulting Detective stare at each other, one pleading, the other judging.  Finally after what seems like a millennia, Molly finally opens the door wider.

Sometimes, she’s too nice for her own good.

Relief seeps into Sherlock’s frame, and he gives her a small, hesitant smile as he steps inside.

“For the record,” He adds.  “You’ve always seen this coming.”

“You being a prat, or me being an idiot and forgiving you?”

“Neither,” He kicks off the pricey Italian shoes she had once hated with a passion.  “But you always predicted that I would fall.”

///

The first time he fell, had been quite literal in a physical sense – Sherlock Holmes had fallen off of the roof of St. Barts.  The second time he fell, had been more mental.  He had fallen off the wagon, so to speak, and along the way had fallen from Molly’s trust.

Neither of those falls could compare to the third, however.  Because the third time, Sherlock fell emotionally.

His words ricochet in her head, taunting her.  How could he do that to her?  She knows she isn’t John – she isn’t his best friend despite knowing him the longest, and she’s okay with that, really – but she had at least thought that he had cared about her enough to no longer be cruel.  She had thought that she had _mattered_ enough to him.

And yet here she is, once more the victim of Sherlock’s cruel games.

_I love you._

She feels hollow, without a purpose.  Broken.  Sullied.  He had always known that she’d loved him, ever since she was a third-year Biology student, and realized that the eccentric genius she spent so much time with, was actually an _attractive_ eccentric genius that she spent so much time with.  He’d ignored it of course, the twat, and occasionally used her affections for him to get away with not so legally taking body parts home (She’s still getting flack for letting him steal that head all those years ago), but overall, Sherlock knew better than to ever use her feelings for him against her in any way that mattered.

And then he had the audacity to call her three days ago, where he had done just that.

She still cann’t think back to that call, without a sob wracking her chest.  After the matter she had heard through Greg that it actually was for a case – something about Sherlock and Mycroft actually having a crazy sister who tried to kill John, hence why she was still in the custody of Rosie.  The circumstances she could understand.

It’s the fact that he hadn’t come to see her since, that really makes Molly feel like nothing more than a means to an end.  A tool for Sherlock Holmes to wield when necessary, and put away when not in use.

Rosie starts to cry.

“Oh, hush sweetie.  I know you miss your dad, sweetheart, I know.  But him and the boys have to clean up your new home, and Mrs. Hudson says their making too much racket for a baby to be around,” She coos as she picks up the girl.  “How about we go for a walk?  Hmn?  I could use some fresh air myself.”

Fifteen minutes later the both of them are wrapped up warm as Molly makes her way to the nearest park, Rosie in tow.  It’s an eerily beautiful day – grey with just a hint of warmth tucked into the frigid winter breeze.  As she walks, Rosie settles into the crook of Molly’s neck, and is contentedly asleep by the time Molly reaches her destination.

As she sits on the hard, stone bench, Molly feels every creak in her body, and feels much more worn than her thirty-four years of life suggested.  Other than the few ducks near the pond, her and Rosie are the only souls braving the small park.

Or so she thought.

He’s silent as always as he sits beside her, his Belstaff making a dramatic sweep, and the navy blue of the scarf she had gifted him with over a decade ago is peaking from his flipped-up collar.

She doesn’t bother looking at him, knowing she that couldn’t without either slapping him again, or turning into a sobbing mess – both options which are out of the picture, as she doesn’t want to risk waking Rosie.  Instead she settles for a more civil approach.

“What are you doing here, Sherlock?”

Her voice lacks power, but she knows that he heard her anyways by the way he stiffens ever so infinitesimally. 

“You weren’t at your flat,” His voice is quiet too, and yet still manages to stir up the last dredges of _something_ in her hollow chest.

“No, I wasn’t because I’ve been there for the last three days waiting for the man who brutally tore me down to come and at least apologize, and when it was clear that that was never going to happen, I gave up,” Her voice cracks at the end of her sentence, and her arms wrap tighter around Rosie’s little form.  “I’m tired, Sherlock.  And I just can’t do this anymore.”

His voice is tight when he asks, “Can’t do _what_ anymore?”

“You,” She answers immediately.  “Your cavalier attitude to anyone who cares about you,” Her voice gets even quieter, if that’s at all possible.  “Your manipulation.  Your cruelty.”

“It was for a case,” He sounds pained.  Good.  He deserves to rot in Hell after everything he had strung her through.

So she answers with the truth, and nothing but the truth.

“I don’t care.”

And she doesn’t.  Not anymore.  How can she, when he’s taken all the bits that made her whole, and so viciously twisted them apart?

She stands up, and turns to walk away, with one last sentiment on her tongue.

“Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes.”

She doesn’t make it very far before she hears his baritone shout, “I thought you were going to die.”

She pauses mid-step, and Rosie shifts in her arms.  Sherlock, the ego-encompassing twat, takes her hesitance as a chance to continue.

“She told me you would die if I couldn’t make you say it,” His baritone is getting dangerously close to her back, and she turns around prepared to tell him off, only to find his face within inches of hers already, his blue eyes more vulnerable than she has ever seen them.  “I thought I was going to lose you, Molly.”

“But don’t you see?” They both ignore the crack in her voice, and the tears swimming in her brown eyes.  “It wouldn’t have mattered had I died or not.  You lost me anyways.”

In that moment, Molly Hooper watches as something vital died in Sherlock Holmes.  He has fallen too far this time, and not even she can pick him up.  She turns to go-

-Only to be stopped by his firm grip on her arms.

“But that’s what made this all the harder, Molly,” He speaks quickly, determinedly, as though he can never let her go.  “I _did_ mean it.  I’ve always meant it, even when you couldn’t hear it.”

For the second time in the last few days, Molly feels as though the universe has an ugly sense of humour as the rug is ripped out from under her feet once again.  She shakes her head, as the tears finally roll down her cheeks.

“Don’t lie to me Sherlock.  Not anymore.”

His response surprises her.  “I’m not lying.  I promise.”

And that’s all it takes. 

The next thing Molly knows is that she’s wrapping her arms around his lithe frame, and he’s pulling her close, careful not to hurt Rosie, but desperate for her touch.  And they stay like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, crying for all they’ve lost and gained.  Two broken people, doing their best to make a whole one together.

Because Sherlock Holmes was always doomed to fall.  And Molly Hooper had always predicted it would happen.

She had just never realized that she would fall with him.


End file.
